We update Rose and Spiegel (2009a, b) and search for simple quantitative models of macroeconomic and financial indicators of the "Great Recession" of 2008-09. We use a cross-country approach and examine a number of potential causes that have been found to be successful indicators of crisis...

The creation of the euro should now be recognized as an experiment that has led to the sovereign debt crisis in several countries, the fragile condition of major European banks, the high levels of unemployment, and the large trade deficits that now exist in most Eurozone countries. Although the...

In our European Economic Review (2002) paper, we used pre-1998 data on countries participating in and leaving currency unions to estimate the effect of currency unions on trade using (then-) conventional gravity models. In this paper, we use a variety of empirical gravity models to estimate the...

This paper was prepared for a session of the 2009 American Economic Association meeting devoted to examining the views of American economists about the euro and the European Economic and Monetary Union on the tenth anniversary of the euro. I had written an article in 1992 in the Economist and...

This paper illustrates the importance of the fiscal framework for monetary analysis by discussing three separate issues. I begin by examining how the fiscal framework changes the macroeconomic equilibrium associated with different steady state rates of money growth. This includes a summary of...

An empirical model of time-varying realignment risk in an exchange rate target zone is developed. Expected rates of devaluation are estimated as the difference between interest race differentials and estimated expected rates of depreciation within the exchange rate band, using French...

EMU would be an economic liability. A single currency would cause at most small trade and investment gains but would raise average cyclical unemployment and would probably raise inflation, perpetuate structural unemployment, and increase the risk of protectionism. EMU is nevertheless being...

This paper discusses a possible solution to the double problem that faces European governments in dealing with the future of Social Security pensions. Like other governments around the world, they must deal with the rising cost of pensions that will result from the increasing life expectancy of...